Animal actuated feed dispensing animal feeders or animal self-feeders are long known in the art. All have a mechanism of some kind actuated by the animal that dispenses feed from a storage bin. With some animals, such as hogs, it is preferred that the amount of food dispensed be limited since it is often wasted if dispensed in volume. Thus, hog self feeders are known where feed is dispensed in limited quantities by side to side movement of a lever that interacts with feed in bins to knock feed into and through a narrow slot into a feed trough. This system relies on the feed to bridge the narrow slot and not simply fall through when not agitated by the lever. It is thus unusable for certain kinds of particularly finely ground feed.
It would be desirable to have an animal feeder that would dispense only a preselected maximum amount of feed upon a single actuation of a feed dispensing apparatus, that was useful with a wide variety of feed, and that did not rely upon the bridging of the feed over the dispersing slot to stop the feed dispensing.